Saturday, December 19, 2009

Deep in Heart of Texas

Very deep, in fact. We’re at neat “resort” RV park in Lajitas, TX, which is on the Rio Grande, about 200 miles east of El Paso. We’re west of the Pecos River and Langtry, where Judge Roy Bean presided. Lots of Border Patrol officers on the way here, and today we saw one suspicious character hanging out in a picnic grove right on the river – so I assumed he was a “coyote” waiting for his next load of immigrants.

Speaking of coyotes, one of the 4-legged type crossed the road in front of us a while ago and a road runner (meep-meep) crossed the road a short time later. Who knew road runners could fly? I guess they only do it when they have to.

Even with some of the very remote areas we travelled through this summer, this area is by far the remotest. Very few towns, and most of those in the area aren’t much more than a small store and a couple of houses or trailers, We’re told the closest Wal-Mart is more than 100 miles away. Now that’s remote!

This Maverick RV Park is part of the Lajitas Resort and Spa – a rustic, but luxurious hotel complex across the road. We’ll try the restaurant while we’re here. The resort is a neat place in the middle of nowhere, designed to look like an old west town, with a wooden boardwalk as a sidewalk. And speaking of coyotes again, we’ve been told that a pack of 3 hang out in the RV park at night. People with dogs are being warned to keep them inside their RVs, lest they become coyote snacks. We’ve been threatening the cats with letting them spend the night outside if they don’t behave.

The Rio Grande and the mountains around here are quite beautiful. Incidentally, this is the area in which the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa did a lot of his raids in the 1800’s. I can’t imagine there was much around here to steal – I mean, no Wal-Mart for 100 miles.

A couple of miles from Lajitas we came across an old movie set now part of a state park. A half-dozen or so westerns were filmed here, and the buildings were all constructed for the films. Probably the biggest film shot there was “Streets of Laredo”with James Garner, Sam Sheppard, and Sissy Spacek. Penny was not in the movie.